Abortion case plaintiff arrested at Senate hearing

WASHINGTON 
The plaintiff in the landmark abortion-rights case Roe v. Wade, who became an abortion protester in recent years, was among four demonstrators arrested Monday for disrupting Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination hearing.

Norma McCorvey, 61, of Texas, better known as "Jane Roe," began screaming that Sotomayor was "wrong" about abortion during the opening statement of the newest member of the Senate, Al Franken, D-Minn.

McCorvey's suit led to the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. But in recent years, she switched sides to speak out against abortion.

Capitol Police identified the other three arrested as: Robert James, from Virginia; Andrew Beacham of Indiana; and Francis Mahoney of Florida. Police did not provide their hometowns.

The first outburst came during Sen. Dianne Feinstein's opening statement. A man in the back of the room interrupted the California Democrat's remarks by shouting: "Senator! What about the unborn!" He called abortion "genocide."

Sotomayor briefly turned her head toward family and friends seated in the front row as the first protester was taken away and his shouts faded.

The initial episode prompted a warning by the Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that no displays for or against the nominee from observers would be tolerated.

McCorvey was among a group that had been in seats reserved for the public. She began shouting as the group was escorted out so a new group could enter. Another man protested in Spanish.

Franken had been praising Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., a longtime Judiciary Committee member who is ill and was not at the hearing.

"We'll show respect to everybody who is here, we will show respect to everybody, including to Judge Sotomayor, to the senators on both sides of the aisle, and we will have order in this room," Leahy said in another attempt to stop the disruptions.

Those arrested were charged with unlawful conduct-disruption of Congress.

Anti-abortion activists demonstrated outside the Hart Senate Office Building throughout the hearing.

McCorvey used Jane Roe as a pseudonym when she filed her lawsuit in 1970, challenging a strict anti-abortion law in Texas. She identified herself a decade later and wrote a book, "I am Roe: My Life, Roe V. Wade and Freedom of Choice."

She switched sides in 1995 when the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue moved next door to the Dallas women's clinic where she worked. She became friends with one of the anti-abortion leaders and became a Christian.

She began working for Operation Rescue. She even started her own "Roe No More Ministry."

In another high-profile demonstration in May, McCorvey was among at least 27 people arrested on trespassing charges when President Barack Obama spoke at the University of Notre Dame.